


Midnight Mesquite

by jenna_thorn



Category: Midnight Texas (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, canon wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 19:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: domestic wingfic - If that's your thing, here you go.Chuy stared into the sky and told himself he could still see Joe until he actually could, a dark smudge against a black background, then a grey shadow against the dark, then a sparrow, an eagle, and at last a man in tattered jeans dropping to light yards away. He propped himself up on  his elbows. "Better?" he asked."I love you," Joe answered.





	Midnight Mesquite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beadslut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadslut/gifts).



> As Midnight, Texas was airing (August 2017), my darling Beadslut lamented that we had a source with actual wings but not nearly enough wingfic. So in text messages, with my thumbs, I typed out wingfic for her. Which became less wing-y and more domestic fluff, oops? Sorry, not sorry.

Dawn crept over the bed like it was invading a private space. It was, really. Day was for other people, for the world of retail and church ladies, always frowning. The night was for them, had been since the pre-dawn murk when he'd first found Joe, naked and bedraggled, not a poaching target at all but a man, or not, not really, for all they showed to the sunlit world outside their home. 

Chuy ran his fingertips along Joe's back, dipping under the scapula that wasn't, along the spine that was. So human and so not. But a better man than most, loving and giving and brave and his all, his only, his as Chuy's was only Joe's, his family obligations relieved by being ostracized, expelled, banished from his own family. Two of a kind, peas in a pod, birds of a feather. He pressed a kiss to Joe's back, above the edge of the sheet. Joe murmured into the pillow and tilted his head, squinting sideways into the shaft of light that knifed past the curtain. "Good morning."

"Murrph."

"That, too." Chuy pressed more kisses following up Joe's spine to his neck, to the ticklish spot in his hairline. Joe twitched and Chuy didn't bother stifling his laugh.

One big arm curled around them both and Chuy was on his back, his head sliding off the pillow which immediately flipped half onto his face. He could see, through one unblocked eye, Joe leaning over him, haloed in the sun. "What?"

Chuy pushed the pillow to the side, careful of the lamp. "You."

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Joe smiled like it was the first time he'd said it. He always did. "Good thing, then."

"Yeah?"

"'Cause I love you." Joe snaked his fingertips into the waistband of Chuy's boxers and Chuy arched into his grasp. Years they'd been together and Joe knew where and how to touch him, when to twist, and where to squeeze and Chuy could have been embarrassed at how quickly he was gasping into Joe's mouth, his panting breath captured by kisses. He wasn't, because he was still catching his breath when Joe bit his lip, whined high, and stiffened, his ankle digging for a moment into Chuy's shin. He tucked his face into the crook of Chuy's neck and chuckled. "Shower time."

They rolled out of bed, to the shower, to the kitchen, to the shop, all the normal things that every other couple in town, in the state, in the world did, but unlike anyone else, unique in the way that every couple is.

\--00--

"You're cuddly tonight." Chuy pulled back but Joe caught his hand. "I'm not complaining, just ... ." He pulled him forward and into a kiss. 

"Just appreciating, I guess. I'm glad I found you." Time was, that would have caused Joe to flinch. Now, years later, his grin broadened and he interlaced his fingers with Chuy's. 

"Rescue a kitten, you've got a cat for life."

"I've never, not for a moment, regretted it." Chuy stepped close, pushing Joe into the cabinet and winding his arms around Joe's waist under his shirt.

Joe leaned in for a kiss. "I've clawed a couple of couches."

"Never regretted." Chuy repeated. "Not for a moment."

Joe let his head drop to Chuy's shoulder. His breath puffed against Chuy's neck and Chuy let his hands ride up, bracketing the indentations in Joe's back. More intimate than a kiss; than any other embrace, this was theirs and theirs alone.

"New moon tonight. Been a while," Chuy said. Joe hummed in answer, and they turned to the stove as one.

\--00--

After dinner, the dishes drying in the rack, Joe stood by the window, one hand on the curtain, the other twisting the hem of his shirt. Chuy smiled. Definitely a new moon, he thought. "You're antsy."

Joe didn't turn from the window. "You wanna...?" he asked, though they both knew the answer.

"Sure," Chuy answered, like it was no big deal, like the true answer wasn't _anything, always, forever._ He grabbed two bottles of water, another two of beer, and juggled the lot into a blue plastic bag as Joe pulled the rolled up sleeping bag from the hall closet.

When they got to the ridge outside town, Chuy busied himself with fussing, spreading out the sleeping bag, setting out the bottles, folding both their shirts as though it mattered, while Joe bent and stretched and unfolded. Joe insisted it didn't hurt, not exactly, but he said that in the same tone of voice he used when he talked about Before, and Chuy knew about hurt that didn't bleed but cut deep into the bone anyway. 

Joe turned and spread his wings and Chuy stepped into his arms, bare skin to skin, wholly intimate even though both of them were still half dressed. The earth pulled away in a rush of wind, as though reluctant to let go his mundane body, but with a third beat of wings, a fourth, a fifth of supernatural power, they were up, gliding over the scrubby mesquite trees, spinning so that Chuy could see in succession over Joe's shoulder the ridge, the creek, the road, the town, the horizon, the starry sky and bare outline of the moon above them, always encircled and safe in his husband's embrace. 

Joe swooped low, then traced a path into the sky, gravity no match for the strength of his wings, even with Chuy's additional weight held close, and they spun and soared among the stars over the mesquite scrub and yellow brown dirt and cracking asphalt of the grungy world they lived in by day. 

Spring nights in Texas are warm, but the wisps of cloud were damp and shivers crept from Chuy's feet to his arms to his hands locked behind Joe's neck. "Down?" Joe asked, and Chuy nodded. They landed heavily, as they always did, and Chuy staggered, drunk on air and moonlight, to the sleeping bag.

He waved one hand. "Shoo," he said. "Go stretch your legs." Joe took a running start when alone, faster and smoother, and cut into the night sky like a spear. 

Chuy twisted off the cap of one water bottle and downed the contents in one long pull as Joe sliced close to the ground, skimmed the crooked branches, then cut back with such a shock of air that the gritty dirt below him kicked up in a filthy cloud. Chuy traded the empty water bottle for a beer, raising the bottle in a sardonic salute as Joe swept back over him, silent and swift. He leaned back, eventually stretching out his full length on the bag to watch Joe's shadow flicker among the stars, cutting into the Milky Way as he flew higher and higher, past the limits of human endurance, but never high enough to slip the bonds of earth, never again. 

Chuy stared into the sky and told himself he could still see Joe until he actually could, a dark smudge against a black background, then a grey shadow against the dark, then a sparrow, an eagle, and at last a man in tattered jeans dropping to light yards away. He propped himself up on his elbows. "Better?" he asked. 

"I love you," Joe answered. 

Chuy met Joe's wild grin with his own and traded one kiss for another then another. Joe's hair was tangled and smelled of the clouds and the stars and Joe himself was summer-warm as he enfolded them both in his wings. They lay under the sky tucked into one another, cradled and blanketed in feathers of grey and white.

"Thank you." Joe whispered the words into Chuy's neck, and he felt them all the way to his toes and snuggled closer. 

Eventually Chuy snorted and wiggled and Joe, long used to the signal, unwound himself enough to let him sit, though he remained sprawled out, a creature of myth and legend framed by a cheap nylon sleeping bag with a fluttering grocery bag behind him. Chuy reached into the bag and pulled out the extra beer, then poked Joe with the second water bottle. "Rehydrate," he ordered. Joe laughed, but he took the bottle and drank as Chuy rolled from ass to knees to feet and stood, directing his gaze to the road and the town beyond. 

"C'mere," Joe said, but after a moment's pause, he stood himself and folded his wings over and around them again.

A hitching breath came from one of them; Chuy wasn't sure it wasn't him. "Let's go home," he said and Joe folded into himself and turned to their nylon nest. Chuy stared into the dark until he heard the crinkle and clink of all the bottles weighing down the Wal Mart bag. He held out one hand and Joe entwined their fingers. The metal zipper of the bag hung over Joe's shoulder flickered in what little light guided their steps back to the truck. 

They made the drive home in content silence. 

The sun rose again, sliding into the house like a snake through grass, and they went about their routine: breakfast, work, grocery runs, and town hall meetings. Chuy shook out the sleeping bag, sand scattering over the porch, rolled it into the thin straps again, and tossed the empties into the recycling bin. He kissed his husband in the sunlight and could smell the stars on his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the week between the reveal of Joe's nature and Chuy's parentage, so non-compliant with canon pretty much immediately.


End file.
